


wardrobe.

by winterwinterwinter



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-05-18 15:21:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14855283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterwinterwinter/pseuds/winterwinterwinter
Summary: a fur coat. a flannel shirt. cowboy boots. jeans. a t-shirt advertising a "fun run." wes and grady, told through their dresser drawers.indefinite hiatus as of april 2019.





	1. flannel shirt.

**2006, the bad apartment.**

 

in a way, the shirt was the catalyst for their relationship. for their real, official relationship.

they’d been fucking around for almost a year - long enough that grady was getting a little better at signing every day with wes’s help.

(why am i doing this? grady thought in the early days, when it was just sex and drinks. i’m not gonna need this ever again. but every time they met up, he had a new word he wanted to learn, a new phrase. and wes entertained his curiosity.)

 _i’m going back home,_ wes told him one morning. they’d spent the previous night doing absolutely no fucking. the first time that had happened, about five months into their whole thing, grady had panicked. they had spent the night drinking beer that tasted, somehow, like dishwater and trading stories about their shitty childhoods instead of trading blowjobs. at nearly a year, he had begun to shrug it off when they opted to watch tv, or go to the bar, or this or that. in retrospect, he has no idea how he didn't realize he was falling in love.

 _you mean T-E-N-N-E-S-S-E-E?_ grady said, rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand.

wes was sat up in bed, looking way too natural against grady’s pillows, in grady’s sheets. like he was meant to be there. and he must have been awake for a while. he was alert, clear-eyed, and he had the book he kept stowed in the nightstand open on his lap.

 _yeah,_ wes said. _funeral. it’s not a huge deal._

 _but you’re flying down there for it?_ grady said, sitting himself up with great effort.

wes shrugged. _it’s my uncle,_ he said. _my mom called on saturday. heart attack._

the silence seemed to fill the room, fill grady’s chest. _were you…?_ and grady used _friend_ because he wasn’t sure of the sign for _close._

wes nodded after a moment’s hesitation. _he taught me all the outdoorsman survival shit i know,_ he said. _hunting, shooting, building a fire. throwing knives. my mom’s brother. he stepped up after my dad took off._ but wes's face betrayed no sadness, and somewhere in his mind grady wondered about that. _  
_

_so when are you leaving?_ grady said.

 _tonight,_ wes said. _drive me to the airport?_ and he waggled his eyebrows like it was something naughty.

grady wondered what expression he made, because wes's face softened up into something almost remorseful, almost sad, and he cupped grady’s face and kissed him, slow and languid and indulgent. it left grady almost dazed, and he couldn't remember a kiss quite like it before that morning.

 _funeral’s day after tomorrow,_ wes said, _but mom said i should go tonight._ and wes didn't have to explain himself to grady. at least, that had never been the case, not with their thing. but still in his face was the sadness. sadness not for his loss, but for grady.

and he didn’t give grady a chance to say anything after that, because he went right back to kissing him that way - that slow, hot flow. like the spill of lava down the side of a volcano. and they fucked in the same way, slow and hot and burning.

 

by that point, wes had gotten in the habit of leaving his shit all over grady’s apartment. books, clothes, his crumpled receipts and snack wrappers. “are you kidding me?” grady said once when he opened his nightstand and found it packed with barely-used tissues and candy wrappers. after he'd gotten back from dropping wes off, grady noticed a flannel shirt carefully draped over the back of his trash-picked armchair. he paid it no mind besides an eyeroll until later - around midnight the next day.

wes spent a lot of time at grady’s hellhole of an apartment, probably eight days a week - enough that his scent had seeped into the sheets, enough that grady felt a little awkward and lonely lying in bed trying to fall asleep without him. enough that grady was in denial over missing him taking up space and filling the room. the night before, the night wes left, he got barely any sleep. he was fitful through the night, tossing and turning. and at that point he couldn't remember if that was normal for him, because, he realized, wes was almost always sleeping beside him, and before that he'd been too high to make note of or remember anything after age eighteen.

he laid in bed for twenty minutes before he hauled himself up to get a glass of water or whiskey or something. he was going to sleep, and it was going to be fine, and he was going to wake up rested, goddammit. and that was when he came across the flannel shirt again.

grady rubbed a sleeve between his fingers, felt out the thickness of it. it was perfect for north dakota. not so much for tennessee.

he tried to half-heartedly convince himself that he didn’t miss wes as he slipped on the flannel. it made grady feel calm and anchored and warm, feeling the flannel settle on him, against him. wes was taller than him, thicker mostly in the shoulders. he felt small in just the right way, relished the way the sleeves draped over his hands.

he retreated back to his empty bed, eschewing a drink. after five minutes, he fell into a fine sleep.

 

grady was spread out on his bed, trying to fill up the space that was wes’s. he was wearing wes’s flannel shirt, and nothing else, and he felt pretty fucking sexy like that. he wished wes could see him, wondered if he'd like it - wondered somewhere, deep inside, if that was too much, wearing his clothes. if that was too close. he pressed a sleeve to his nose and took a deep breath, and he shuddered as he breathed in wes’s ghost. he tugged at himself, half-hard already.

he imagined wes there with him, imagined the two of them curled on their sides, wes thrusting slow and deliberate, the kind of fuck he never asked for but always savored. he imagined the flannel sticking to his skin, too warm and too heavy, imagined wes rucking it up to trace down his spine. he took another deep breath and mumbled oh, tugged at himself a little faster. a little harder.

he came imagining wes and his inquisitive eyes looking down on him, came imagining wes fucking him with his fingers. he came imagining wes saying things that were the opposite of filthy - _so gorgeous, darling, my love_ \- but felt so dirty when grady conjured them in his mind.

 

(wes found him the next day still asleep at eleven in the morning, curled up on his side of the bed, wearing only the flannel he'd left behind. and it was certainly a sexy sight, but it mostly just plucked at wes’s heartstrings.

he shucked his shoes, his jeans. his shirt. he climbed in, rearranged the blankets that he knew grady had kicked off in the middle of the night, and folded himself around grady, who stirred immediately.

(“what the fuck?” he said out loud, groggy.)

wes could feel him vibrate faintly. he pressed his nose to grady’s messy hair, rubbed at his chest, over his heart.

“sleep,” wes mumbled. “‘m here.”

(“fine,” grady murmured, already halfway back to sleep. he grabbed for wes’s hand on his chest, doing nothing when he found it except hold it.)

“‘m here.”)

 

 _why the flannel?_ wes asked later. _it's mine._

grady froze. after he'd woken up, he had tossed the shirt to the floor and pretended like it hadn't happened, that he hadn't fallen asleep wearing his not-boyfriend's shirt in his absence.

 _yeah,_ he said, finally.

wes gave him a smug look.

 _no,_ grady said. _i know what you're thinking._

they'd gotten into a fight a few months - two, three? - into their arrangement. grady could piece together simple sentences, but they still did the bulk of their talking in wes's notepad. wes had used a new sign, fists pressed knuckle-to-knuckle, thumbs pressing up and down. and when grady asked, he was honest about it - said it was affectionate, like _sweetheart_ or _honey_. and grady had freaked out, drew the line in the sand so hard and so deep it was more like a fissure. this isn't anything, he had written, it's never going to be anything.

 _don’t try and pretend like we’re not something,_ wes said. _i'm tired of it. we fuck around but we hang out all the time. sometimes i come over and we don’t even have sex, we just watch tv and eat grilled cheese. grilled cheese that_ i _make. for you._ the way he spoke, the way he got right into it, made it seem almost practiced - like he'd rehearsed. like he'd been thinking about it.

you make it perfect, grady wanted to say. instead he said _we aren’t boyfriends_ and he tried to be firm, but he was like a glass that had been shattered and put back together, over and over and over. he was nothing but brittle and composed entirely of cracks.

wes rolled his eyes. _then, please, what are we?_ he said. _i go grocery shopping with you, i helped you kick coke, you spent christmas with me, we fuck constantly but there’s no way it’s casual anymore. not the way we do it._ he huffed a hot, heavy breath. _i told my mom about you. she always asks me if i'm seeing anyone, and i finally said yes. and to be honest, we said it wasn't exclusive, but i haven't been with anyone else since we started doing this._

grady hadn't, either. and maybe that was the breaking point. maybe that was what had him standing down almost immediately. _why do you want to be with me?_ he said, feebly. a last curiosity before. a toe in the water before he bit the bullet and jumped. _i’m - you know all that bad, ugly shit about me._

wes shrugged. _i’ve met worse,_ he said, _and i've done worse._ and grady remembered the stories wes had told him - about 20, 21, 22.

grady’s eyes slid to the ground, to their feet. he saw his own, bare on the ratty, torn carpet. he saw wes’s, in mismatched socks he probably grabbed blindly. he let his gaze travel over wes’s legs, up his torso. back to his face. he looked way too natural there, in the living room of grady’s apartment. like he was meant to be there.

 _you could find someone better,_ grady said. don’t be with me, he didn’t say, i’m not worth your time, and you know it.

wes petted grady’s beard with two fingers. _you learned to sign,_ he said, _just because you wanted to talk to me the “right way.”_ and he kissed grady just like he did the day he left - slow and languid and indulgent.

 

 _you’re my first boyfriend,_ wes told him later, in bed, lounging and watching tv. grady was curled up against his chest, his pajamas wes's flannel shirt and a pair of boxers, feeling calm and anchored and warm.

“what?” grady said, jerking back, more than a little incredulous. _how? how on earth?_

wes shrugged. _i was fine to make out with and fuck around with,_ he said, _but no one ever wanted to stick around. especially not hearing guys. do you know how hard it is to find another deaf gay guy?_

 _why wouldn’t anyone want to be with you?_ grady said. _you’re the full fucking package!_

wes laughed, grady’s heart fluttering at the sound. he’d heard it before, of course, and with the same results. he didn't think his heart would ever fucking quit. _come back, baby,_ wes said, holding his arms out.

grady acquiesced and made sure to rub his head against wes’s chest so his hair tickled his neck. wes let out a few giggles at that before slapping at grady’s shoulder. the movie was coming back on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're supposed to be around, i guess, 26? so, presuming they're only a few years older than molly solverson, given the three of them were kids in 1979, and molly solverson is 33 in 2006, in this AU they're only like... ten years younger than they should be? who knows.


	2. fur coat.

**2005, the bad apartment.**

 

an older woman, sixty-some, had lived in grady’s building. she only ever introduced herself as emerald, and she looked just enough like liza minnelli that grady, in his thickest cocaine haze, was sure they were the same person.

emerald was there before he moved in, had been for ten years at that point. she, grumpy and not very sociable, took to him immediately, and he to her. in his darkest hours, she was always there, apartment always open. she cleaned up his vomit, she rubbed his shoulders, she fed him when she could. she worried after him, disguising it with condescension.

one day, grady was home and lucid enough to open the door to her insistent knocking. “come to mine, lost boy,” she said in her gravelly, worn-leather voice. “need your help.”

“i need to leave this godforsaken town, grady,” she said, lighting a cigarette, plopping down heavily on her torn, velvet couch that looked like its past life had been spent serving in a bordello. “so that’s what i’m finally doing, baby boy. i’m packing my fucking bags and going to greece.”

“greece?” grady said, finding a spot amongst detritus and boxes and bags to sit.

“lesbos, sweetheart,” emerald said. “a pilgrimage. like when your people go off to israel, or whatever. i’m chasing sappho’s ghost.”

grady glanced around, eyes catching a box overflowing with colorful feather boas, thick photo albums stacked on top of each other, unspooled yarn in a tangled rainbow pile on the floor.

“but first, i have to exorcise myself of all this shit,” and for emphasis, she kicked a nearby box, one full of shimmery-looking fabric. “and that’s what you’re here for.”

the next two days grady spent in emerald’s apartment, porcelain and tulle and pearls and parchment up to his knees. he slept next to her in bed, falling asleep to the sensation of her fingers running through his hair. “you have such thick, gorgeous hair, baby boy,” she would say. “even at my peak, mine couldn’t hold a candle to yours.”

it was on the second day grady uncovered the fur coat.

“fuck, is this real?” he said when he tugged it loose of the hanger. by that time they had finished the mountains of boxes in the living area and had moved on to her overflowing closet, packed tight with garish outfits from her theater days - another reason grady thought that his friend was _maybe_...

“absolutely,” emerald said behind him. “when i was… yeah, when i was around your age, i was shacking up with this older lady - if i was twenty-three, she was thirty-nine. she was rich as hell, all her husband’s money. she bought me that fur coat for christmas. nicest thing i've ever owned. ever.”

it was a huge, beautiful coat, a rich black-brown color, with a plaid satin liner. grady looked it over, considering. grinning cheekily, he swung it open, threaded his arms through the sleeves. he presented himself to emerald, who clapped.

“wonderful, baby boy,” she said, leaning forward to pinch his cheeks between her talonlike nails. she gripped the coat around the shoulders, shook it loose of dust, adjusted it on his frame. “you have to keep it. i want you to have it.”

“uh, alright,” he said. in his mind, he was seeing dollar signs, and those dollar signs melted into piles of blow. “don’t know when i’ll wear it...”

“god, anywhere, everywhere,” emerald said, looking insulted. “are you under the impression you need an occasion to wear a fur coat? you poor, unenlightened child.” and she ruffled his hair, which didn't matter back then, because in those days it was a dark, wavy rat's nest.

grady left emerald’s apartment for, unbeknownst to him, the last time that night. on his shoulders was the fur coat, in his arms a thick afghan - “made by my grandmama,” she said, “won’t need that in greece.” - and in his pocket a photograph of emerald the age he was then.

“the broad that bought me the coat took that one,” emerald said. “that woman…” and she had a faraway look in her eyes, when she spoke of the rich woman. grady almost thought he imagined it when emerald first mentioned her, but there it was again, plain as day. he felt his own face soften, his brows loosen, but the rest of his body stiffened, thinking of his plans for the coat.

emerald rubbed grady’s shoulders through the fur. “live it up, baby boy,” she said.

 

grady would go back to his apartment, lay down in his bed. he’d curl up under the afghan, swaddled in the fur coat still. it was a cold night, and most of his blankets were nearly threadbare, worn down from when he was a child. from the coat he’d take the photo and he would look at it, really look at it.

there was emerald. or, a young woman that grady could believe would someday become emerald; they had the same haughty stare. between her fingers was a cigarette. she was smiling, the kind of silently challenging smirk that grady could almost feel unfurling across his own face. he flipped the photo over.

on the back, in neat, loopy cursive, was written _my dear anna mae - how i see you - kisses, esther._

the next day, when grady went down to emerald’s apartment, he found it locked, empty and abandoned. the same night, he met wes for the first time.

 

grady could never bring himself to sell the coat. not for coke, not for anything. he clung to it in his darkest hours, for warmth and for comfort.

every year, he wore the coat from october to march, when it started to warm up again. he'd had a few instances where someone had tried to paw it off him, either asking for a price or just threatening, but grady was a scary motherfucker when he had to be, and he carried a knife on him anyway.

 _you look like a F-U-R T-R-A-P-P-E-R,_ wes said the first time he saw grady in it, when it was all still teeth and tongues and lust. _kinda sexy._

 _my mother gave it to me,_ grady had said almost automatically, thinking of emerald who walked in and out of his life so easily. how safe he felt, sleeping with her in her bed, surrounded on all sides by the remnants of who she was and who she had been. people he would never know.

and wes had kissed him tenderly on the neck, trailing his fingers down his front before pulling him into bed.

 

a month after wes moved in, grady came home to a pile of mail on the coffee table, which wasn’t unusual. wes was asleep on the couch, unknowingly snoozing under emerald’s afghan from grandmama.

what was unusual, about the mail, was that under the bills and flyers and catalogues sat an unassuming postcard. it was of a cliffside village at sunset, ocean gleaming in the background. grady knew instantly who it was from.

he hastily turned it over.

in emerald’s neat, blocky, somewhat ugly script was written a short message with no return address. grady blinked hard before he read it, trying to suck the minute tears back in.

 _dear baby grady,_ it read. _hope you found someone to take care of you, god knows you need it. be good. don’t worry about me, i’m drowning in pussy._

and at the bottom, _emerald_ , punctuated with a crude shooting star.

(“because i’m a star,” she said when he’d asked, the first time he saw her signature. “and everyone has to know.”)

 

 _who was the postcard from?_ wes asked after he’d woken up.

 _did you read it?_ grady said.

 _yeah,_ wes said.

“ugh,” grady groaned. _don’t read my mail, man._

wes rolled his eyes, playful. he grabbed for grady’s hips - handsy motherfucker - and grady batted him away halfheartedly.

 _from my mother,_ grady said. he opened the spare drawer in the kitchen, the one on the end. from the table he grabbed the postcard and from the drawer he drew his only magnet, which featured a cat in a party hat doing a thumbs up and saying _marnie’s fifth birthday party._ with a finality, he stuck the postcard on the fridge.


	3. t-shirt.

**2010, the good apartment.**

 

 

grady was sexiest in a t-shirt.

and wes knew how aggravated grady would pretend to be, if he said that to him - _a t-shirt? not my nice suits? my nice, tailored suits? blah blah blah you bastard blah blah_ \- so he kept it to himself. mostly.

but sometimes he just couldn’t help it. sometimes grady would just be standing in the kitchen, drinking coffee - wearing his glasses, wearing a worn-out t-shirt from the jewish community center he grew up in or wherever - and wes would just have to drag him back to the bedroom. there was no other option.

grady just looked so soft in a t-shirt, so. comfortable. so safe - so unlike how he started dressing when he decided to get his life together - _really_ together. all those suits and nice shirts, his perfectly shiny shoes. it was a welcome change of pace, to just see grady all... unwound. and there was just nothing sweeter than grady riding wes nice and slow, drawing it out, naked from the hips down. cock dribbling onto his shirt, glasses sliding down his nose. hair mussed and messy from sleep.

 _you get so wet for me,_ wes said. _like a lady._ grady rolled his eyes, and wes tugged at grady’s dick, spreading tacky precum all down his shaft, making his eyelids flutter just so. and then, he gripped grady’s hips _hard_ , watched him whimper. he took up the reins, guiding him up and down before just flipping them, slamming grady down into the softness of their mattress.

grady was flushed red down to his collarbones, and on his lips wes read _fuck, fuck, fuck._

and if grady got come on his shirt, well. that only made the whole picture sweeter to wes - grady on his back, all tuckered out, his own come spattered across his shirt advertising charity bingo - _win a basket!_ \- and wes's oozing from his rosy asshole.

“mm,” wes hummed almost involuntarily as he leaned down to kiss grady. grady, who kissed limply back, hand weak and loose on wes’s neck.

 _so sexy,_ wes said, winking down at his beloved, so thoroughly wrecked and ruined at nine in the morning. he rubbed his thumb over his bearded cheek.

 _yeah, yeah,_ grady said, trying to bat wes’s hand away. instead, he ended up merely catching it and holding it. “whatever,” he breathed over wes’s lips.

wes recoiled, happily exaggerating disgust - _brush your teeth, rat,_  he said, pulling away from grady. he stood, just out of reach of grady’s hand swiping out.

“you bastard,” he watched grady say. "this was your idea!"

immune to grady’s dark glare, especially when he was looking so dishevelled and delicious, wes scooped his flannel pajama pants from the floor and strode into the kitchen to make them some breakfast.


	4. scarf.

**2006, the bad apartment.**

 

grady liked nice things.

it was surprising, to wes. when he’d met grady, a year before, he was living in squalor. his apartment was disgusting, he was high all the time, and there was an expired half-gallon of milk in his fridge next to a solitary potato with sad, withered roots poking out from its skin.

but, his clothes had always been clean and pressed, for the most part. and his sheets were always pristine - save for when they fucked around, of course. he owned an iron, for god’s sake. he was too out of his mind for groceries, but he dutifully ironed his shirts. he could barely pay his rent, but he had managed to go out an buy a nice, new shirt or trousers every other week.

grady liked looking good, and he liked feeling good in what he wore. and that was what lead wes to a too-expensive department store the weekend before christmas, gazing blankly at socks.

an associate had approached him when he was wandering through the racks of trousers, tried to help, and he’d had to rummage in his pocket for his notepad to tell her _i’m deaf._

surprisingly, she had half-smiled, and signed _let me know if you need anything._ and as wes stared at the socks, all elegantly displayed in small boxes, he was heavily considering it.

 _so you’re looking for a gift?_ the associate - charlene, her nametag read - said.

wes nodded.

_who’s the gift for?_

_my boyfriend,_ wes said, a tingle shooting across his body. he relished in calling grady his boyfriend. he loved to write out notes - when his coworkers asked him what he was doing for the weekend, _oh, hanging out at home with my boyfriend._ when he wrote home to his mother, _my boyfriend’s doing well._ there was just nothing quite like the truth - that grady was his.

charlene, young- _ish_ and almost frail-looking, smiled. _do you have any ideas?_ she said.

 _he likes nice things,_ wes said. _like nice shirts and ties, but i want to get him something more special._

 _of course,_ charlene said. follow me, _i think i can help._

charlene led him to a display near the racks of men’s shirts. they almost looked like earrings, the way they were displayed and packaged.

 _C-U-F-F-L-I-N-K-S,_ charlene said. _if you need any more help, just come find me._

wes scrutinized the cufflinks for awhile. most were very plain - just slabs of gold or silver pressed onto a pin. some had minute designs, flowery little things or simple, geometric bars. there was a card on the display that said _ask an associate about monogramming._ but, in the end, he chose a simple pair. black enamel, edged in silver. easily he could imagine them set into grady’s cuffs - he imagined himself fixing them to grady’s cuffs in the morning, before work, kissing along the line of his jaw before meeting his mouth. he imagined them glinting from the floor, almost lost in the rumpled pile of grady's shirt.

wes had almost made it all the way to the register when an outerwear display caught his eye, and he wandered over to it.

he left the store ten minutes later.

 

on christmas, wes’s internal clock woke him at eight in the morning, just like it had for the past twenty-six years.

he immediately rolled over to start shaking grady awake, his whole body buzzing with excitement, something he was never able to quite shake from childhood. grady merely vibrated and rolled so far away that he was teetering on the edge of the bed. wes sighed, tugged him back over so he was securely in the middle of the bed. as he rose, he tucked grady in, fixing the blankets. from the closet he added the garish afghan grady’s mother gave him that he loved so much.

wes spent the time between his waking and grady’s by making coffee, and then making breakfast. wes drank coffee only on occasion - he didn’t make a habit of it, mostly because he didn’t like the taste. but grady loved coffee, and wes loved breakfast. he decided he didn’t mind grady sleeping in - he was going to surprise him with a good spread when he did finally stumble out of the bedroom.

wes made a pile of pancakes, eggs (four, two scrambled, two over hard), some toast (and he had little packets of jam stolen from diners sitting on the table, ready for grady), some bacon strips and, just in case grady wasn’t into it, he set the half-eaten box of cheerios on the counter.

but when grady shuffled out of their bedroom, holding his afghan tight around his shoulders, eyes still heavy with sleep, he rejoiced.

 _you did this while i was asleep?_ grady said.

wes shrugged.

grady kissed him.

wes smiled down at him, trailing a hand up his side to tickle just under his armpit. grady jerked. _brush your teeth,_ wes said, _you’re nasty._

“ah, fuck you,” grady said lazily, barely straightening out his middle finger when he held it up.

 _teeth first,_ wes said.

grady sat himself at the kitchen table while wes busied himself with loading his boyfriend’s plate - three pancakes, the scrambled eggs, most of the toast, and just a few pieces of bacon. he also poured him a cup of coffee and poured sugar until it felt “right”, just the way grady had taught him to.

 _merry christmas,_ wes said when he sat down with his own plate.

 _merry christmas,_ grady said. he looked soft and small, sitting at the table wrapped in his blanket. almost like a child. _thank you for all this. this is awesome. you are awesome._

 _of course,_ wes said. he smiled.

grady smiled back, looking lighter than he had in a long while. all the tension was gone from his face, and his eyes shone. across his cheeks was a healthy, rosy blush.

they both tucked in, grady stroking over wes’s bare ankle under the table.

 

wes waved his hands in a silent cheer as he went to grab his gifts for grady from under their tree, which was really just grady’s pathetic fern that seemed to be in a perpetual state of nearly-dead-and-yet-still-alive. there were three presents - wes’s for grady stacked on top of each other, wrapped neatly in blue paper patterned with dreidels; grady’s for wes in a plain gift bag. wes grabbed all three, absently noting the weight of his. he joined grady on the couch, where he was offered some of grady’s afghan. he huddled in close, letting grady wrap it around him.

 _open mine first?_ grady said, looking like he was trying not to look hopeful.

 _okay,_ wes said, taking the gift bag in hand.

he considered making a show of opening it, just to get on grady’s nerves, get him worked up and annoyed, but he was far too excited. so, he tore through the plain tissue paper that peeked out from the top of the bag and grabbed around inside.

the first thing he pulled out was a print, wrapped in plastic, of two cowboys looking _very_ cozy. it looked like the cover of a an old, pulpy, homoerotic novel. and he loved it. he cocked his head at grady. grady looked sheepish.

wes carefully set the print aside and pulled from the bag a book. _the history of true crime in the midwest_ , the front read. at this, grady looked even more sheepish.

finally, from the bottom came a blanket, some warm gray color, tightly rolled and tied with a little ribbon. it was incredibly soft, and wes unraveled the ribbon to spread it to its full size. it was a sizable throw, and he spread it over their laps.

 _why do you look so nervous?_ wes asked.

 _i don’t,_ grady said. _do you like everything?_

 _i do, baby,_ wes said, leaning in and kissing along grady’s jaw before laying one on his pretty mouth.

they almost got carried away, grady’s hands clutching at wes’s neck and shoulder, wes sliding his tongue across grady’s bottom lip. but the book slipped from wes’s lap to the floor and must have made a clatter, because grady startled.

 _what?_ wes said.

 _book,_ grady said, _scared me._

wes nibbled at his mouth.

 _i should open my presents anyway, i guess,_ grady said. he pawed at wes’s arms.

wes leaned back and set his gifts in grady’s lap.

 _nice wrapping paper, asshole,_ grady said, but he was grinning, toying with a corner of the paper.

 _open it!_ wes said.

and so grady did, starting with the smaller of the boxes. he opened the lid to find the cufflinks set into dark display foam. he became still, staring hard at them in his hand. he peered up at wes, eventually. _what are these?_ he said.

 _C-U-F-F-L-I-N-K-S,_ wes said.

 _no, i know!_ grady said, hands jerky. _i mean, why?_

 _i know you like stuff like this,_ wes said. _fancy stuff. nice stuff.  
_

wes watched grady trace his thumb along one of them, and doubt started to tickle at wes. didn’t he like them? should i have gone with socks? wes thought.

 _thank you,_ grady said, but he still looked unnerved, something sad in his eyes.

 _what’s wrong?_ wes tried to say, but grady was already ripping at the second gift, movement slightly. frantic.

the scarf, navy blue and moody purple, had been a last-second grab. standing before the display, it had caught wes's eye, and he imagined it wound around grady's lovely white neck, looped through itself. he saw in it another opportunity to take care of grady, however small. grady, who owned about fifteen blankets, grady who was always _always_ cold. but the scarf seemed to puzzle grady even more than the cufflinks. he ran his hand along it in the box, feeling it out. he took it in hand, stared down at it wordlessly.

it was then that wes realized grady was crying, tears racing down his cheeks. he was ripping at his bottom lip with his teeth.

“hey,” wes felt himself say, “hey hey.”

and grady looked at him, a little wide-eyed, a little surprised. a little… scared?

 _what’s wrong?_ wes said. _you’re crying._

 _thanks, genius,_ grady said.

 _come on,_ wes said.

grady tried to turn away.

“stop,” wes said.

“you stop!” grady replied.

 _it’s christmas,_ wes said. _you’re being like this on christmas._

 _fuck off,_ grady said.

_just tell me what’s wrong, you big baby._

wes watched grady pout and rub hard at his tear-tacky cheeks.

 _i’m just surprised,_ grady said.

_why?_

_i’m just surprised you got me such nice gifts,_ grady said. _and made that breakfast._

wes was confused. _why?_ he said. _you’re my boyfriend._

 _yeah,_ grady said, _that’s part of it. i guess i still can’t understand how anyone could just want me and be happy with me._

wes set the gifts aside - the cufflinks, the scarf. he kicked his blanket to the ground, scooted closer to grady, set a tentative hand on his back.

 _before you, i can’t remember anyone caring to be with me, and be happy with being with me,_ grady said. he pressed himself against wes, tucking his head into his neck.

wes gathered him in his arms. he felt a deep, cutting sorrow, holding the man he loved, unbelieving his worthiness of nice things, both material and metaphysical. wes clutched him tighter, pressed him closer, wanting to fold him up and save him from the part of himself that said _you're not worth it._

they sat, curled together, for awhile.


	5. necktie.

**2005, the bad apartment.**

 

in the early days, of tangled limbs and sweaty sheets, of days lost to cocaine and nights lost to lust, wes was a love-'em-and-leave-'em sort of hookup. grady would text him, or bump into him at the bar, at the club, and they'd go back to his apartment, and they'd fuck. and wes would leave. sometimes immediately. sometimes, he asked to use grady's shower. but always, always, he would leave.

the first time wes slept over, he made a thin excuse. _i've been up since six in the morning,_ he had said. _if i try to leave this bed, i'm gonna collapse._

against his better judgment - the voice in his head hissing _kick him out of your sacred space_ \- grady let him stay. swaddled in his blankets, huddled against his pillows. wes, skin glowing with half-dried sweat in the low lamplight. grady had gotten up, used the bathroom. splashed his face with cool water and scrubbed his cheeks. he returned to the bedroom, and wes was already asleep, one arm stretched across the empty space in the bed. the space that was supposed to be grady's.

when grady woke up, wes was gone.

after that, wes slept over every once-in-a-while. always with an excuse - _heat's busted at mine, A/C's busted at mine, i'm too tired, your bed is comfier than mine._ if that one had ever been true - well. grady pitied the man. grady's bed was fucking awful.

wes slept over every once-in-a-while. but he was always gone by morning. except...

except.

grady woke up to a screaming alarm. he laid there, tried to rub the headache away through his forehead, before he hefted himself up to slam his fist down on the snooze button.

the snooze button.

he looked at the clock, its neon-red numbers flashing eleven-fifteen, and he remembered. the night before, he made sure to set the alarm for ten-thirty, because he had a job interview. and then wes had come over with beer, and they'd drank, and they'd fucked, and wes was fast asleep beside him, and grady had woken up at ten-thirty, but he'd smacked at the snooze button until he'd hit it, and he'd rolled over, pressed against wes's back, and fallen back asleep. again and again and again.

grady vaulted out of bed, and scrambled to make himself decent. if he ran the whole way, he could still make it.

 

grady walked into his apartment. he kicked his shoes off with more force than usual, and relished in the way they hit the wall - _thump, thump._ he went into his bedroom, and found wes almost exactly where he’d left him, two hours ago: in his bed. this time, though, he wasn’t asleep. and he wasn’t naked. he was half-clothed - pull-over hoodie, boxers - and sprawled out in the middle of the bed, a book in his hand. grady couldn't make out the title from his angle.

grady tapped wes’s calf firmly - more two claps than two taps, actually. wes looked over at him lazily, and grady took note of his sweet, curly bedhead. _have you been here this whole time?_ grady said.

wes dogeared the book, set it aside, hefted himself to a kneeling position on the bed in front of grady. he shrugged. _what if i was?_ he said. his hand found the end of grady’s haphazardly tied tie and tugged at it. he gave grady a cocky half-smile. _how’d it go?_

grady screwed his mouth up, turned away from wes. he felt shame pouring into his body, filling him from top to bottom. he shuffled over to the closet. his hands went to his fly, his belt. and after tossing his clothes into the closet - missing the hamper by a sizable margin - he joined wes on the bed, stripped down to his socks and his boxers. he reclined against the pillows, curling his legs against his chest.

grady scrubbed at his face with both hands, rubbing hard his cheeks, over his eyes. he peeked through his fingers and instantly caught wes’s eyes. he felt annoyance settle sudden and heavy across his body, and he raised his eyebrows, a question.

 _you looked nice,_ wes said. _in the shirt and tie._

“oh,” grady said to his hands, still covering almost his whole face. he peeled them from his cheeks and said _thank you._

before he’d moved out, grady’s mother had bought him three ties and two nice shirts. “for job interviews, sweetheart,” she’d said, smiling. in her eyes, grady had seen her doubt. he’d been snorting coke for a few months, at that point. he knew she knew he wasn’t going to any job interviews any time soon, and he wasn’t moving out so that he could “learn to stand on his own.”

he’d worn one of those ties that day. the burgundy one.

wes scooted up the bed, settled in next to him on his side. _i’ve only worn a tie once,_ he said.

at this, grady was genuinely surprised. _really?_ he said. _i’ve worn ties so many times. weddings, funerals, B-A-R M-I-T-Z-V-A-H-S, B-A-T M-I-T-Z-V-A-H-S. thanksgiving._

wes shrugged. _once,_ he said. he trailed his hand up grady’s arm, over his shoulder. caressing his cheek. they shared a moment, just staring at each other. one beat, two beats, and grady was starting to feel a little unsettled, under the twin microscopes of wes’s eyes. it felt too - intimate. too close. finally, wes leaned in, gave him a kiss that felt too soft, too kind for what their relationship was.

 _my father took me to a faith healer,_ wes said.

“what,” grady said, so taken aback by what he’d read on wes’s hands that he couldn’t help it. _what?_ he said again, with his hands.

 _faith healer,_ wes said again, putting extra emphasis on faith, squeezing his fists, jerking them downward. _when i was nine. right before he left me and my mom._

 _for what?_ grady said. he thought that maybe - _maybe_ \- wes was fucking with him. but the expression he wore, the look in his eyes told grady no. he was completely serious.

wes gave grady a look like he was an asshole. which, he was. but. _are you serious?_ wes said, waving a hand about his head, his ears.

“oh, fuck,” grady said. “sometimes i… forget.” he mumbled mostly to himself, cheeks burning, eyes sliding to his lap.

wes gave him a playful shove, rolled his eyes once grady had replaced his gaze on wes’s face, once grady could see it. _it was a sunday, and we drove three hours to get to this guy’s travelling tent,_ he said. _i was wearing a hearing aid back then, and my dad had taken it away for the day._

grady felt a spike of curiosity. what happened to that, grady wanted to ask. he didn’t. he kept himself quiet, unsure of what was happening between them. grady knew so little about wes. only a handful of things that he'd learned on accident - what he liked to drink, and when. his birthday. his favorite positions. that he snored - just a little, just a soft little noise that helped lull grady to sleep on the nights wes made an excuse to stay.

 _and we sat in that blazing hot tent for hours, not even listening to his bullshit sermon because neither of us could hear it, and at the end my dad begs the guy to heal my ears,_ wes said. his face is drawn into a firm, tight expression of disgust. his eyes are burning with hatred. nose wrinkled. _it was pathetic._

they laid motionless. grady didn’t - he didn’t know what to do with all that. wes was his fuck buddy. he texted him when he needed a good time, not - not whatever that was. grady peered over at wes. his expression of disgust had melted into something somber, sadder. something… open, and softer. he looked - honestly, he looked beautiful. for the first time, grady realized wes was beautiful.

 _really_ beautiful.

the whole time, of course, grady had known wes was sexy, was hot. it was the first thing he’d noticed about him - his shoulders, his arms, his jaw. his unrelenting stare. but he’d never noticed wes’s beauty, before. the elegant curve of his eyelashes. the slope of his nose. the even, pink tone of his skin. the freckles like rogue little stars that dotted his body, one here, one there.

grady felt his heart thump _hard_.

grady breathed deep, drew his mouth into a line. he tapped wes’s chest, got his eyes back. _wanna hear about my S-H-I-T-T-Y dad?_ grady said, eyebrows up, an ugly smirk tugging at his mouth.

wes raised an eyebrow, and made an show of settling deeper into the pillows, eager for a story.

 _so, it was my B-A-R M-I-T-Z-V-A-H,_ grady said. _you remember what i told you about B-A-R M-I-T-Z-V-A-H-S?_

 

 

**2013, the house.**

 

grady reentered the bedroom from the bathroom, where he'd been brushing and flossing his teeth, fiddling with his cufflinks, and saw wes standing in front of the mirror in the corner, struggling with his tie.

grady sidled up beside him, leaning against the bureau. _need help?_ he said, watching wes’s hands turn over each other, knotting the tie more and more, hopeless -

wes sighed, broad shoulders deflating. he dropped both hands to his sides, catching grady’s eyes in the mirror. he nodded.

grady had him pivot, then, and gleefully set to untying the knot that hung limp around wes’s neck. wes’s eyes traced him, followed his hands as he made quick work of it. and soon grady was pulling tight a neat windsor knot around wes’s collar, adjusting it carefully.

 _this is dumb,_ wes said. _B-O-L-O ties are simpler. and cooler._

 _i’m not marrying you if you’re wearing a B-O-L-O tie,_ grady said, grimacing. wes wrinkled his face up in a mockery of grady’s. _you’re lucky i’m marrying you at all, actually._

at that, wes’s face lit up, his broad, boyish smile lifting his cheeks. he nodded, earnest, hands flying out to hold grady’s hips between them. and seeing wes’s face brighten, his mouth twist up like that... grady found himself returning his grin with ease, all teeth and crinkly eyes.

 _you’re so superficial,_ wes said. _can’t believe i’m marrying someone so shallow and vain._

“can’t believe i’m marrying a cowboy,” grady said, pitching forward, folding his mouth against wes’s, looping his arms around wes's neck.

wes pressed grady firmly against the bureau, hands still clinging to his hips. grady hummed, and wes made a soft noise back, like an echo in a canyon. he licked across grady’s mouth, the seam of it. “no, no no,” grady mumbled, hands pushing at wes’s chest, pushing him back. _we don’t have time, we have to go._ and wes ignored him a moment, diving back in to nose along grady’s neck, nuzzling his pulse. finally, he pulled away with a little nip that made grady jump.

on the way out the door, wes tapped grady’s shoulder. grady turned, quirked his eyebrows up.

 _do i have to convert for you?_ wes said, barely able to contain his huge, idiotic grin. grady huffed and shoved him, charging forward out the door, wes laughing his clumsy, uproarious laugh behind him.


	6. lingerie.

**2010, the good apartment.**

 

  
wes shouldered open the bedroom door and was greeted by grady reclining in bed, wearing a well-worn t-shirt, one of wes's own, book in one hand. he looked soft, lit only by the warm glow of the bedside lamp, the yellow-tinted bulb that reminded wes of the lights in his grandmother's house. his glasses, thick-framed and black, were on. he had a cigarette in the other hand, and wes noticed the window on the opposite wall, cracked. and, usually, wes would give him hell for that, but wes was feeling tired, and grady was looking good. he hadn't looked up when wes came in, focused instead on his book, borrowed from the library wes worked at, of course - _devil in the white city._  
  
( _it's a little fucked up,_ wes had said when he brought it home, _so i think you'll like it._  
  
_what are you trying to say about me?_ grady had replied, apparently completely oblivious of the old-old paperback he'd set down when wes had entered the room: _the amityville horror_.)  
  
wes approached, reaching a hand out to trace his finger along grady’s calf, up his leg. over his dark, diaphanous stockings. and grady looked at him, finally.  
  
wes smirked. _feeling pretty?_ he said. his finger, joined by the rest of his hand, reached grady’s thigh then. he squeezed, relishing in the malleability of it. he pressed his fingers into his flesh.  
  
grady grinned. _fuck you,_ he said. he set his book aside, leaning forward and meeting wes's mouth halfway, kissing him firm. he spread his legs out, and so wes spread his grip out, pulling at grady’s soft inner thigh.  
  
_you look good,_ wes said, appraising him. the borrowed t-shirt, the glasses, the black stockings. _real good._ he took one of grady’s hands and pressed it to his crotch, already half-hard in his jeans. _i like this. the shirt and the stockings._  
  
_i bet,_ grady said, stroking along his dick. _you look good, too. bet you’d look even better if you got rid of all this_ \- and he tugged on wes’s jacket, his sweater, his shirt, his jeans.  
  
wes grinned, stepping back to shed his jacket, kick off his boots, take off his belt. he went to take off his sweater and shirt, but grady threaded his fingers through wes’s empty beltloops and tugged him forward instead. _look,_ he said, tugging at the hem of his shirt, gliding it up and over his belly, exposing lace-edged panties to match the stockings. _you like this, too?_ he said, an almost-goofy smile on his face, mischief burning like fire in his eyes. he looked like he was ready to dissolve into one of his nervous giggles, and that made wes let out a huff of laughter, himself.  
  
wes sat at the edge of the bed, arching into grady's space. he fingered the lace at the top of grady’s thigh. _you know i do,_ he said, leaning in to nuzzle at grady’s neck, tickling him with his fuzzy muttonchops.  
  
wes pulled away, and they grinned at each other, looking like a pair of devils, before grady wagged his finger in a come-hither gesture and wes lurched forward for another kiss.

*

  
it had been grady’s secret. his dirty, little secret; one he kept to himself, for himself. wes had found out by accident.  
  
it was toward the end of grady’s withdrawal period. he’d gotten devastatingly drunk at some hole-in-the-wall to compensate the coke he wasn’t doing. it was a miracle wes had found him at all, ducking into every bar in a five-mile radius of grady's apartment. he’d already fallen hard for grady at that point, and so wes ended up dragging him - literally, dragging, grady's feet stumbling uselessly underneath him - home to that same apartment. and halfway up the stairs to his floor, grady had puked all over his own pants and shoes.  
  
( _it was disgusting,_ wes would recount over the years, at grady's request and of his own volition. _almost made_ me _puke. but i’m not a weak-stomached pussy like you, so i was fine._  
  
grady would give him a shove, or stick out his tongue, or just glare and grumble. “i don’t like the sight of it!” he’d say, “it’s fucking disgusting! and the sound, retching - man, you don't know. bastard.”)  
  
wes had hauled him into the moldy bathroom, dumped him in the cracked tub, and stripped him of his shoes, ruined, and his soiled jeans. grady had tried to help, but he only made it more complicated, two pairs of hands fumbling over the same button.

it was the absolute last thing wes was expecting. his fuck buddy laying there, deliriously drunk, wearing a little pair of ladies' underwear.

( _i popped one immediately,_ wes said. _i felt awful, because you were all fucked up and i had to help you, and there i was salivating over you in that tub._ )

they were grady’s favorite pair at the time, he would later admit - black, all over lace. scalloped edges. _i like the way they make my ass look,_ grady would say later, ears burning red, blush creeping across his cheeks, looking everywhere except at wes’s amused face.  
  
_what a coincidence,_ wes would reply, _i do too._ and kiss him, kiss him, kiss him.  
  
( _i cleaned you up and got you tucked in, made sure you were on your side,_ wes said. _then i jerked off on your couch, thinking about pulling them aside and eating you out. thinking about watching you come in them. thinking about..._  
  
and usually, when wes gets to that part of the story, he goads grady with fantasies, spelling them out with his eloquent hands, miming them, until grady squirms, sporting a semi, and lunges to shut wes up with a biting kiss, lest he continue the torture.)  
  
the morning after, wes had cornered grady - weak, hungover grady - and breathed down his neck until he’d needled out some honesty. _i like how it makes me feel!_ grady had said. _it’s soft and comfortable and i think i look sexy!_ his face was red - with fury, embarrassment, shame. arousal.  
  
_fuck yes you do,_ wes had said, eyes skating down grady’s front to hover around his hips, and -  
  
_and._  
  
_why do you like it?_ grady asked once, over breakfast, the night before spent in silk and lace. he sat across from wes, hair kinky with cowlicks bred from sleep, the collar of his shirt dipping down to show off the little bruises wes left along his collarbones. _i know why i like it._  
  
wes made a bit of a show of gathering his thoughts - biting his lip, cocking his head, knitting his brows. acting like he really had to think about why his boyfriend was such a sight in women's underwear. grady reached over the table, gave him a shove.  
  
_you’re the last person that stuff is made for,_ wes had said. he ogled what he could of his partner, his arms and neck and face, all so beautiful, all just grady. i _t's a sexy contrast._ and he was thinking of grady’s hair, dark and thick and everywhere - his face, his chest, the trail down his belly…  
  
_so sexy,_ he repeated to grady’s overly-satisfied, cat-got-the-canary face, leaning over to stroke a thumb down his cheek. grady bit after him as he pulled back - _frisky,_ wes admonished.

*

 

 _would you wear lingerie?_ grady said, pairing fancy and underwear together. wes snorted. they laid in a heap on their bed, half-clothed and well-worn and spent, ready for sleep.

 _not for myself,_ wes said. _but i'd do anything for you. you know that._

grady tried to hide the smug, sentimental little gleam in his eyes, the softness of his brow, by glancing around, leading his eyes into his lap. he still had his glasses on, had kept them on through the sex, at wes's request. _you should wear them,_ grady had said, _be my sexy librarian._ and wes had laughed, and laughed, and kissed him over and over. it had been particularly sexy the way they fogged up while they kissed, the way they bounced against grady’s face while wes fucked him.

wes plucked the glasses from his face, and put them on his own. he put a finger to his lips and hissed “shhh…”

grady shoved him. _they look good,_ he said, rolling over onto wes, lazily straddling him. _should borrow them when you suck my dick._

 _will you freak out if i get come on them, then?_ wes said. the first time he’d convinced grady to leave his glasses on while he gave wes a blowjob, he’d tugged grady off just as he felt himself throttling toward the edge. usually, grady was a slut for come on his face. but most of it ended up spattered across his glasses, trickling into the grooves, and grady had been outraged.

grady rolled his eyes. he began idly stroking wes’s shoulders, a smooth back and forth of his hands. he thumbed across wes’s cheeks, over his two-day old stubble.

wes stared up at grady, unabashed in his admiration. he was enthralled by him, his warm body, his heavy dark eyes, his slight frame. wes let his eyes rove, following the folds of his shirt, the lines of his thighs. he looked back up at grady’s face and their eyes met. grady grinned.

 _wanna go for a ride?_ wes said.

grady winced. _i can’t go again right now,_ he said.

 _no, not that,_ wes said. _hands._

grady surrendered his hands with a look of skepticism. wes held them tight, and bucked his hips once, grady bouncing in his lap. before he could react, wes quickly did it again - and again - bucking harder, bouncing grady higher.

“what the fuck!” he could see grady saying between peals of laughter. and he yelled, then, something wide and unreadable, maybe just a shout - (“wes!” it was, breathless and without tone.) wes’s cheeks hurt from the smile that was pushing them to their limits. he bounced grady one last time, rolling him onto his back once he’d crashed back down into wes’s lap. wes hovered over him, just. hovered. staring down at him as the laughter subsided, as his shoulders stilled.

you’re my best friend, wes thought, watching grady’s eyelashes brush his cheeks. i can’t believe i lived without you so long. i don’t want to remember what living without you was like. i can’t believe how much i love you, you grumpy little asshole. he didn’t say any of this. instead, he took grady's glasses off his face, folding them and setting them on the nightstand before he settled himself in, laying half on top of grady. he tucked his head under grady’s jaw, under his chin, and sighed, disgustingly content as he felt grady reaching to tug the blankets over them.

(“i’m not turning the lamp off,” grady mumbled to himself. “i can’t reach with your fat fuckin' gut on me like this, so… whatever… not allowed to yell at me tomorrow.”)

wes felt the faint buzz of his boyfriend’s words through his chest, but he didn’t give a shit what he was prattling on about. wes was comfy, and he was safe, and he was in love, in love, in love - and for a moment, warm in bed, that was all that mattered.


	7. cowboy boots, part one.

the first pair had been a gift from his grandma. his mother’s mother, dorothy.

wes was five. grandma dorothy had driven up for the weekend, just because, just for fun, and had stowed the box away in her suitcase.

 _honey, could you go in my suitcase and bring me the little blue box?_ she’d said. wes had trotted off to the foyer, where she’d left her bags, and rifled through her suitcase until he found the plain blue box, sitting innocuously at the bottom, under a few blouses.

wes had brought it back to the living room and dropped it onto her lap. _open it,_ she said.

 _why?_ wes had said.

_open it._

and so wes had.

inside sat a beautiful pair of rich brown cowboy boots - genuine leather, with intricate, delicate stitching. wes was instantly enamored with them, and his mother had to hide them when he went to bed that night after he tried to curl up under the covers with them.

the day wes realized he’d grown out of them, a year or so later, he cried. he hid his tears from his father and confided in his mother, crying to her with a boot in each hand, standing in the doorway of his bedroom.

two weeks later, wes came home from school to a package from grandma dorothy on their stoop.

 

 

*

 

 

grady had noticed the boots first, eyes trailing up and down wes’s body after he’d approached. and wes knew grady had noticed the boots first because most people tended to. the boots and his deafness, his most notable characteristics. “some kinda cowboy?” wes had managed to read on his mouth.

wes shrugged, sipped at his drink. skimmed his eyes over grady, sitting pretty at the bar. all the half-drunk twinks and hunks in the place, and it was grady who’d caught his eye, looking so sullen and unapproachable, so out of place under the neon lights. he grabbed a pen from his jacket pocket, scribbled on the napkin in front of grady: _yeehaw_.

grady had laughed and laughed, squeezing his eyes shut. he threw back the rest of his drink once his giggles died down and slid off his stool, standing so impossibly close to wes.

“what do they say?” grady had said, a hand on wes’s chest, wes’s eyes riveted on his pretty pink mouth. “save a horse, ride a cowboy?”

they had stumbled out into the night together, and the rest was history.

 

 

*

 

**2010, the good apartment.**

 

got you something, wes wrote in a text to grady. he set the box on the passenger seat, sat there for a moment waiting to see if grady would text back.

is it a gun i can use to put myself out of this misery? i fucking hate this job, grady’s text read. wes snorted down at his screen.

sorry baby, wes wrote, tossing his phone on top of the box, turning the key in the ignition and speeding off.

wes set the box delicately on the bed when he got home, busying himself in the kitchen with dinner. pasta - his standby. yeah, he knew how to cook - he’d moved in with grady and gotten a crash course on jewish cuisine, and inherited what had once been mom levin’s battered copy of the red plaid _better homes and gardens_ cookbook - but sometimes… sometimes it was just pasta.

he was standing at the sink, slowly pouring the pasta from pot to colander when he felt grady’s arms wind around his middle. he felt grady press his face into his back, and he could feel the faint huff of a grumble. i know, baby, wes thought, setting the pot on the counter and setting the colander down inside it. he turned in grady’s arms, then, and rubbed at his shoulders. he raised his eyebrows, an invitation - what’s wrong?

“fucking hate my job,” grady said. “fucking hate my boss. hate my coworkers.”

wes thumbed over his beard, stroked at his temples, smoothed down the hair there.

“gonna go postal.”

“baby,” wes murmured. _don’t do it alone, at least._

“you wanna help me pistol-whip marjorie in sales?” grady said, eyelids sitting heavy over his eyes as he gazed up at wes. wes nodded. “thank you.” he buried his face in wes’s chest, and wes felt him take a deep breath against his shirt. wes stroked up and down his back.

grady pulled away. _what’d you get me?_ he said, eyes all quizzical.

wes shrugged. _go into the bedroom and see for yourself,_ he said before turning back to the pasta.

he was making their plates up when grady came back, brandishing a beautiful black boot in each hand. he set them on the counter. _what are these?_ he said, face half-amused.

wes stared at him. _for you,_ he said, smiling a bit. _that’s why they’re all black._

 _i don’t have this fetish,_ grady said.

 _told you, not a fetish,_ wes said. and he had, hundreds of times - after the first time they hooked up, after they visited wes's mom and grady saw all of wes's childhood memorabilia, after wes bought the brown leather fringe jacket that hung proudly on the back of their bedroom door.

 _this has nothing to do with sex?_ grady said, grabbing one of the boots and waving it for emphasis. he was staring hard at wes, eyes full of scrutiny. _i can read you like a book._

wes snorted. _sure you can_ , he said. _you wanna eat or not?_

 _this is a sex thing,_ grady said, so thoroughly convinced of himself, setting the boot back down on the counter and following wes to the table.

 _is it a crime that i wanted to buy my boyfriend a nice pair of shoes?_ wes said as grady sat down.

 _yes,_ grady said, full of spite. wes rolled his eyes and shook his head.

 

they didn’t talk about the boots for the rest of the evening. they came up again later, much later - close to midnight. grady was taking a late shower, trying to wash off all his frustrations before bed. wes was sprawled out across their bed, reading a battered copy of _watership down_. the shoebox was sitting on the floor in front of their bureau.

wes wasn't exactly sure why he'd bought the boots. he saw them in the store, and it set his heart on fire, a little, seeing them on the shelf. allover black. he remembered grandma dorothy - rest her soul - and remembered the little blue box his first pair had come in, remembered how they'd looked when he opened the box, sitting inside like a little treasure. was he trying to share that feeling with grady? that little spark of seeing yourself so completely in something besides the mirror. that didn't make sense, though, not really - grady couldn't see himself in something like that. was he giving grady even more of himself, more than he already had? maybe - he realized he was just staring at the words on the page, unseeing, and wedged his bookmark back into the spine before closing it, and tossing it up the bed, near their pillows.

out of his peripherals, wes saw the bathroom door open and the light flicker out. he pulled himself upright, sitting position, and felt his breath hitch in his throat as his eyes fell upon his boyfriend, who stood nonchalantly in the bathroom doorway, completely nude but for the beautiful black boots on his feet.

grady’s hair was hanging limp and wet over his forehead, little drops of water falling on his shoulders. he was pretending to examine his cuticles, feet leisurely crossed at the ankles, all his weight on one foot. he glanced at wes, as if noticing him there for the first time. _so you’re sure this isn’t a sex thing?_ he said.

you _are making it a sex thing,_ wes said, licking his lips, eyes skipping from his feet to his crotch to his chest, gaze catching on his dark hair everywhere, wes's greatest weakness. _they look perfect on you._ just as wes had imagined, when he bought them. _  
_

_they fit perfect,_ grady said, uncrossing his ankles, gazing down at the boots on his feet. he looked back up at wes, a naughty little smile on his face. he approached the bed slowly, carefully placing one foot in front of the other until he was standing before wes, cock beginning to fill out. he raised one knee and set it on the bed, hovering over wes’s lap. _what do they say - save a horse, ride a cowboy?_

grady brought his other knee to the bed, sitting himself down on wes’s lap, and wes released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in. _can't use the same line twice,_ wes said.

 _just try and tell me you don’t want to fuck me while i’m wearing these boots,_ grady said, rocking a little in wes's lap, ignoring him. _tell me you don’t want to feel them against your back when i wrap my legs around your waist._

 _can’t,_ wes said before sliding his hands down either side of grady’s chest, over his hips, around to his ass. he leaned in, and grady met him; their mouths moved together, as they had a thousand times before.

 

wes woke to grady sitting cross-legged next to him in bed, examining one of the boots. he was still naked - had fallen asleep that way - and his hair was more than a little unruly, a combination of their rigorous fucking and falling asleep with his hair half-damp. it looked like a little rat's nest, and wes loved it. wes stretched, and his throat vibrated with a grunt. grady looked at him.

 _these really are nice,_ he said, setting the boot down between them.

 _like them?_ wes said, sitting up. he was wearing a t-shirt, the one he slept in most nights, plain blue and faded. grady grabbed at it, pulled, tried to tug it over wes's head. wes slipped it off, and grady pulled it onto his own body, pausing to sniff at the collar. wes couldn't help but smile, a little, watching him.

 _i was being serious, yesterday,_ grady said, looking guilty. _they aren’t really my thing. they are comfortable, though._

 _they look so good on you,_ wes said before nibbling at grady’s earlobe. grady shrugged him off.

 _they must’ve cost a bit,_ grady said. _they’re real leather._

 _don’t worry about it,_ wes said.

_what if i don’t wear them?_

_don’t worry about it,_ wes said again. _just wanna see you in them. doesn’t matter if it’s only just once._ and he started to drop kisses across grady’s shoulders, letting them fall from his lips like snowflakes from the sky.

grady twisted to face wes, shaking him off again. _so it really wasn’t about sex?_ he said.

 _not at all,_ wes said. _remember that story about my grandma and the boots?_

grady smiled, a bashful sort of softness to it. wes remembered telling him that story, how his face had fallen into starry-eyed wonder, watching wes's hands. that was right before they became a thing, a real thing. and wes remembered that evening as one of a few where he realized he had a real shot with grady, seeing that sweet look in his eyes.

 _just wanted to get you a pair,_ wes said. _i know you dress a lot nicer than me. but i just wanted to._

grady leaned against wes. he gazed up at him with that same nebulous, starry look, beautifully unself-conscious. _not gonna say it,_ grady said.

 _don’t have to,_ wes said, snaking a hand around grady and stroking at his side.

contrary to his words, grady did end up wearing the boots. quite a bit, in fact, inside and outside the bedroom. but, curiously, more often outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't read this anymore. please let me know if i missed any dumb mistakes.

**Author's Note:**

> 4/12/2019:
> 
> hello! it's been a long time since i've worked on, talked about, or updated this particular fic. i got extremely distracted by my other fics, ones that, to be honest, take a bit more work than just domestic softness. which is not to say that domestic softness is bad or that i don't enjoy writing it. i love writing it. even in my ~serious fic there's mountains of softness, because that's just about the only thing i'm seriously interested in portraying when it comes to this pair of disasters, and when i observe my hit count (which i do too much) i do notice that this fic and my awful little smut collection have done the best, which tells me there definitely is an audience, a desire for some INTIMACY here. i just don't think i can get back to the place i was in when i was writing the bulk of this collection, and instead of leaving anyone interested hanging with an open-ended "Chapters: 7/?" i'd much rather slap this note on the end and update it to "7/7."
> 
> i had twelve-ish additional installments planned, which would've brought the chapter count up to twenty-nine, which is only a little horrific to me. looking at them now, some of them are absurdly entertaining. some just sound boring. some of the summaries i wrote include: "grady wears overalls and they do something," "wes is sexy," "be the cowboy." the series would've ended with wrenchers adopting a child and raising him together, eventually. isn't that the dream.


End file.
